


January Chills

by Hideous_Sun_Demon



Series: this feels like the start of something good [3]
Category: Designated Survivor (TV)
Genre: Cuddling, F/M, Fever, Flu, Fluff, Lyor is too stubborn for his own good, M/M, Multi, Vomiting, sick!fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-10
Updated: 2018-02-10
Packaged: 2019-03-16 03:14:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13627422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hideous_Sun_Demon/pseuds/Hideous_Sun_Demon
Summary: Cold days in Washington have their consequences.





	January Chills

Seth woke to the sound of a rattling cough. Still buried under three layers of blankets and unbelievably cozy, Seth started to drift back to sleep, when after a few seconds he heard it again, louder this time. It sounded as though there was a jackhammer going off in someone’s chest. Seth frowned; his arm was still flung over Kendra’s waist, her chest rising and falling in the rhythmic pattern of sleep, so that meant... He rolled over, his suspicions confirmed when he found the space that Lyor had been empty and quickly cooling.

Careful not to wake his girlfriend, Seth slid out from under the covers- christ it was cold- and padded over to the en suite, where the mysterious coughing was coming from. In there he found Lyor, frozen halfway between grabbing cold medicine and staring sheepishly back at Seth. Lyor’s nose was as red as his flushed cheeks, and his eyes were bloodshot beneath his glasses. Sympathy tugged at his heart- poor guy probably hadn’t gotten any sleep like this.

“You’re sick.” It wasn’t a question, but Lyor shook his head fervently anyway.

“No, I’m-“ Lyor was cut off by another round of coughing which he buried in the crook of his elbow, “-not,” he finished weakly. Seth raised an eyebrow- he’d learnt that particular move from Lyor himself, but apparently it didn’t work so well on the master.

“This is just...allergies,” Lyor proclaimed. “From that damn cat. I told you it was a menace-“

“You’ve already tried playing that card, Lyor, we know you aren’t allergic to cats. And are you or are you not currently reaching for a bottle of cold medicine?”

Lyor quickly dropped his hand, pouting slightly in a way that Seth found infuriatingly adorable. Don’t fall for it, he sternly reminded himself. “You sound like Kendra.”

Seth’s lips quirked up into a smirk. “You’re lucky she isn’t awake or you’d be getting a full cross-examination right about now.” He’d been joking, but Lyor deflated a little at his words. “I’m sorry I woke you,” he mumbled. Seth’s smile turned more gentle, and he looked at Lyor with soft eyes. “It’s fine, babe, there’s only seven minutes until the alarm anyway.” Seth shivered in the biting January air, and realised with faint alarm that Lyor was only wearing a t shirt and boxer briefs. “C’mere, you must be freezing.” Seth pulled his boyfriend close to his chest but frowned when he felt the heat emanating from his skin. Seth pressed his palm against Lyor’s forehead, the other man sighing contentedly at his touch. Not quite burning up, but getting there.

“Lyor, you have a fever. I think you should stay home today.”

“Hmm...wait, what? No!”

Lyor pulled back, glaring at him peevishly. “Really Seth, you’re making a mountain out of a molehill. I am completely fine. I won’t miss work for a case of the sniffles!”

Seth sighed. “The White House won’t fall apart if you miss one day of work, Lyor.” His boyfriend let out a sigh that seemed to say ‘that’s what you think,’ but before Seth could try another argument, the sound of Kendra’s sleep muffled voice interrupted his line of thought. “What are you guys-“ Her head poked through the bathroom door and her eyes widened comically as she took in the sight of Lyor, face quickly creasing with sympathy. “Oh babe, you look awful.”

“Love you too, Kendra.”

“I’m serious.” Kendra stepped fully into the bathroom and brushed her hand against Lyor’s flushed cheek. “You should really take a day off.” Their boyfriend groaned dramatically, head tipping back to thud lightly against the cabinet door. “You two ganging up on me like this just isn’t fair, you know,” he grumbled. “I promise you I’ll be fine. Just let me take my cold medicine,” Lyor pointedly took out the bottle and waved it in their faces, “and I’ll be good to go. You can coddle me all you like when we get home.”

Seth and Kendra shared a glance. If Lyor was adamant about going to work, there wasn’t a person on this earth who could stop him, not even master-arguer Kendra Daynes. “Fine,” Kendra sighed, “but we’re going to hold you to that promise. Get ready for maximum coddling tonight.”

Lyor rolled his eyes, but a fond smile was tugging at his lips. “Oh I don’t doubt it.”

-

Aaron felt a brisk spring in his step as he powered through the corridors of the White House. Everyone else tended to complain about the winters here in D.C, but Aaron loved them. The cold, so different from the dry heat at home, energised him, reminded him of just how far he’d come. He only hoped that meeting with Lyor Boone wouldn’t deflate his good mood. His relationship with the political advisor wasn’t quite the mutual antagonism it once was, but nevertheless, if Aaron developed a headache from a non-NSA related issue, he usually knew exactly where to pin the blame.

As Aaron walked through the door to Boone’s office, however, his apprehension rapidly melted into concern as he saw odd little man slumped on his desk, glasses pressed against the wooden surface. Aaron thought he’d looked a little off colour when he last saw him earlier that morning, but now he looked barely conscious.

“Jesus, Lyor, are you alright?” Aaron quickly approached the desk and reached over to shake the man’s shoulder, but Lyor moaned unintelligibly and swatted his hand away. He slowly lifted his head off the desk and blinked blearily at Aaron, sweat shining on his forehead. “Can I do something for you, Aaron?” he half-slurred.

Aaron blinked. “...yeah. You can explain to me what the hell you’re doing at work seeing as you clearly have the flu.”

A glint of vexed determination managed to shine through the haze in Lyor’s eyes. “I think I can...finish up here. I-I just...” Suddenly his crimson cheeks paled, and Aaron watched with alarm as Lyor made a wild lunge for the wastepaper basket and wretched, letting loose a small puddle of vomit. Aaron took a step back in disgust, nearly running in to Emily, who’d walked in just in time to see her political advisor throw up his breakfast. 

“Oh my god,” she exclaimed, eyes wide as she stopped dead in her tracks. Lyor only offered a mumbled, “oh dear,” before collapsing against the side of his desk.

-

Seth practically barrelled through the door to Lyor’s office, panting slightly as he glanced around desperately for his boyfriend. He’d come as soon as he heard- some junior speech writers had been sniggering about “that dickhead Boone” making a spectacle of himself- all lingering irritation at Lyor refusing to stay home now wiped out by mind-numbing worry. He’d collapsed? Fuck.

Seth almost didn’t spot Lyor, curled up in a ball on the couch, miserably hugging a pillow to his chest. Seth rushed over and knelt down beside the couch, nearly tripping over the wastepaper basket beside it, his hand reaching out and brushing Lyor’s clammy wrist to alert him that he was there. Lyor’s eyes flickered open and a look of utter adoration flooded his features. “Seth!” he exclaimed, and his expression quickly soured. “I think...maybe..you were right,” he conceded. Seth couldn’t tell if his pained tone of voice was from speaking with the headache he surely had or admitting that he‘d been wrong.

“You don’t say,” Seth murmured. He nearly reached over to soothingly run his hand through his boyfriend’s hair, but abruptly remembered that they weren’t alone. Standing up with a faint blush, Seth turned back to face Emily and Aaron- Emily had one eyebrow quirked, while Aaron just looked dumbfounded. Right. To them, he and Lyor were supposed to be workmates, definitely no more than friends. 

“What, uh, what happened?” Seth asked, trying hard to look no more than casually concerned. Yeah, smooth.

Aaron shook his head, apparently deciding to just go with it. “I walked in and he was nearly passed out on his desk. I tried talking to him, but he only got four words out before hurling into the bin and collapsing.” Seth glanced down at the bin and- yeah, he could smell the sharp stench of it now. “He needs to get home.”

“He shouldn’t have come to work in the first place,” Emily sighed, gazing at Lyor with a look of one part worry, two parts exasperation. “None of us have cars. He said Kendra drove him here?” There was definitely a question in there, but Seth studiously ignored it.

“Yeah, she did. She was in court, but she should be here in about ten minutes.” He’d texted Kendra as he ran to the office, and she’d sent back a flurry of alarmed replies. ‘Be there soon’ had been the general message. Seth glanced down concernedly at Lyor’s shivering form, and then back up at Emily. “I’m surprised you didn’t just have Secret Service carry him out of here and drive him home.” 

Emily’s frown softened a little. “He’s disoriented,” she explained, “I didn’t want to upset him any more.” Seth was grateful. He sat down heavily next to Lyor, and the man sluggishly started to pull himself into a sitting position. “Woah, woah, easy,” Seth admonished gently, laying a hand on Lyor’s slim shoulder, but he apparently took that as an invitation for further contact, casting aside the pillow and practically collapsing into Seth’s arms. Lyor pressed his nose into Seth’s neck, snuggling closer to find his warmth and wrapping his long arms around him to cling at the fabric of Seth’s suit. 

Seth blanched, looking up at the other Senior Staffers with an awkward half-grin, completely at a loss as to how he could explain this decidedly non-platonic behaviour. Emily’s expression was completely incredulous, but a trace of mirth seemed to be sneaking onto Aaron’s face as he took in Lyor Boone octopus-hugging the Press Secretary. Seth felt an odd surge of protectiveness for his boyfriend- he knew his friends would never engage in malicious teasing, but if Lyor was clear-headed enough to know what was going on he’d be absolutely mortified.

Lyor’s fingers flexed against Seth’s back, and in a pathetically small voice mumbled something that sounded an awful lot like, “wanna go home.” into his neck. Seth’s heart tore a little at the distress in his feverish boyfriend’s voice. “I know, I know. Kendra’ll be here soon.” Seth itched to comfort him properly and, well, they’d already come this far, so Seth reached up a hand to slowly rub small circles between Lyor’s shoulder blades, dropping a furtive kiss into his damp curls.

Aaron excused himself, claiming work, but Emily stayed behind, watching the two of them with an unreadable expression on her face. Seth was lucky that this was a fairly slow day at the White House, because he didn’t think Lyor would let him up even if he wanted to go. They remained like that until Kendra burst through the door, looking as though she‘d ran straight from the courthouse. She probably had. Her gaze softened as it landed on her two boys, and Seth gave her a reassuring smile before turning back to Lyor.

“Hey,” he murmured, “Ken’s here. We gotta get up, alright?”

There was a faint grumble, but Lyor seemed far too exhausted to do any more than cling to Seth’s jacket as they heaved themselves off the couch. Seth wrapped an arm securely around Lyor’s waist and they hobbled awkwardly over to Kendra, who clucked her tongue softly as she studied Lyor’s miserable face. “Silly man,” she murmured fondly. Kendra looked back at Emily, expression shifting to the one she used when up against a particularly difficult lawyer in court. “We should probably take the rest of the day off too, to keep an eye on him.” Emily clearly didn’t miss Kendra’s use of the word ‘we,’ but she didn’t miss a beat before nodding. “Sure. I’ll call you if anything urgent comes up. Kendra blinked in surprise, but smiled in thanks anyway. Emily’s brow creased in concern as she looked at Lyor leaning against Seth’s shoulder. “Look after him,” she said.

Seth nodded firmly. “We will.”

-

Kendra deposited Lyor on the guest bed, plonking down beside him at the insistent tugging of his hands at her shirt. Lyor had switched from Seth to Kendra as soon as they made it past the door of her apartment, so she guessed she was on snuggle duty now. Not that she minded.

Although it would have been more pleasant if her boyfriend’s skin wasn’t currently on fire. She pressed a palm to his forehead and it came away slick with sweat- Lyor was absolutely burning up. Kendra sat up and gently unhooked Lyor’s fingers from her shirt, shushing his feeble protests as she reached over to pull his shoes off. She moved to his tie next, deftly unknotting it with a few swift tugs of her fingers. Lyor had been lying as floppy as a rag doll up until now, but as Kendra began to unbutton his shirt he squirmed into a sitting position- well, tried to. Kendra pushed him back into the pillows with a firm hand.

“What’re you doing?” Lyor asked, blinking foggily up at her.

His brain really must be fried, Kendra mused as she undid all the buttons and got to work unsticking the fabric from his clammy skin. “You’ve got a fever,” she explained, “I need to cool you down.” Lyor frowned as though about to argue, but thankfully exhaustion won out and he decided to suffer the indignity of being undressed like a child in silence.

Just as Kendra got Lyor down to his briefs and pulled the light sheet over his still shivering body, Seth came through the door with a glass of water and two pills in one hand, and the emptied plastic bin from the bathroom in the other. “He was throwing up earlier,” he said to Kendra’s raised eyebrow. She took the proffered aspirin and water as Seth helped their boyfriend prop himself up against the pillows.

“You think you can hold these down?” Kendra asked Lyor as he squinted at the pills in her hand. He shrugged, which she took as a yes, and he carefully popped them into his mouth, following them shakily with a gulp of water. “Drink the whole thing, babe,” Kendra encouraged. Just as Lyor handed the empty glass back to Kendra an eruption of coughs ripped from his throat, and he flopped bonelessly back against the pillows. The aspirin would kick in soon, but for the moment Lyor’s face was still a picture of misery.

Seth hovered on the other side of the bed. He was an expert hoverer. Kendra hadn’t thought there was anyone else in the world who fretted more than she did until she’d met Seth Wright. He usually managed to keep it clamped deep down inside, at least at work, but here in the privacy of their apartment, he was positively vibrating with it. “He’s so much worse than this morning,” Seth said.

“It’s because he’s been pushing himself,” Kendra sighed. “Rest is the best thing for him right now.” Seth nodded, but he still looked like he was itching for some other way to be useful. Kendra got where he was coming from- she still felt the aftershock from the adrenaline that had coursed through her when she’d received Seth’s message earlier. Even though the reality of the situation wasn’t nearly as disastrous as the ones she’d conjured up in her head, Kendra’s worry still gnawed at her, urging her to do something.

Seth disappeared into the en suite and Kendra caught the sound of running water before he emerged again with a dampened hand towel. He knelt down beside the bed, nudging the bin out of the way, and draped it across Lyor’s glistening forehead. He moaned in relief at the cool touch.

“Feels good,” he mumbled. 

Seth chuckled. “I bet it does.”

Kendra kicked her own shoes off and pulled her feet up to sit cross-legged on the bed as Seth sponged their boyfriend’s brow. In all the time they’d known Lyor, neither of them had ever seen him so unguarded, so vulnerable. He’d never allowed it- or, really, he’d never allowed himself to end up in a situation that required it. But seeing him now, Kendra felt a warm rush of fond protectiveness. She couldn’t help it, not with the way Lyor looked at the moment, cheeks flushed and normally impeccable hair mussed. Seth must have felt it as well, judging by the way he was smiling as he dabbed at Lyor’s forehead. “My mum used to do this for me every time I got sick as a kid,” Kendra mused laughingly. “All that’s missing is the tomato soup.” Seth hummed in nostalgic agreement. “This must bring back memories, huh?” Seth prompted the other man.

Lyor’s brow furrowed, as if he were sifting through his bank of childhood snapshots. “My mother wasn’t exactly the caring type,” he mumbled finally. 

Seth’s face dropped. Kendra took Lyor’s hand in her own; it was sweaty and unpleasant to touch, but she squeezed it firmly anyway. Lyor didn’t talk much about his childhood, and she was starting to guess why. But that didn’t matter right now- he had them.

A few minutes passed in relative quiet, and Kendra thought Lyor had finally drifted off. She was proven wrong when he sluggishly grabbed at Seth’s wrist as he went to apply the freshly-dampened towel. “I’m contagious, you know,” he rasped, sniffling to prove his point. “You guys really shouldn’t be getting too close to me.” 

Seth huffed. “A little late for that, man.”

Kendra shuffled closer to Lyor, drawn in by the heat radiating from his skin. The aspirin seemed to have cleared his head a little, but he still looked ridiculously forlorn. Oh no, Kendra wasn’t going anywhere. “I’ll take the risk,” she said. “You promised us maximum coddling when we got home. Well, I’m cashing in.”

Seth wordlessly went back to sponging as Kendra stretched out beside Lyor, hugging his arm close to her. The air was still bitingly cold, but with the press of warm skin against her, Kendra was positively toasty. There were, she decided, worse ways to spend January days.

-

Seth had a funny look on his face, Kendra noted. It was a few days later, a few degrees colder- Kendra really hated the winter- and they were all lounging around her office enjoying lunch together. Trying to, at least. Seth still looked as though there was a bug crawling up his nose.

She narrowed her eyes in thought, and right on cue, her suspicions were confirmed as Seth let loose a deafening sneeze into the crook of his elbow. Lyor, good as new after a day or two of moaning in bed, startled at the sound and then froze as the other two slowly swivelled their heads to face him.

Lyor’s eyes were saucer-big. Make your next move carefully, Lyor. Kendra warned in her head. Don’t say what I think you’re about to-

“I told you so.“

“Lyor!”

It was hard to look smug after being hit squarely in the forehead with Seth’s scrunched up napkin, but Lyor somehow managed it. Kendra almost preferred him when he was sick. 

He was lucky they both loved him.

**Author's Note:**

> I love these goddamn nerds


End file.
